About BVRio

BVRio’s mission is to promote the use of market mechanisms to facilitate compliance with environmental laws and support the green economy.

The creation of the BVRio Institute is part of a strategy to contribute to the development of an ecosystem of actors involved in activities related to environmental economics. In this sense, BVRio systematically carries out an intense work of promoting and disseminating concepts and market instruments.

The development of theoretical concepts and regulatory base, and the engagement of actors, are necessary but insufficient conditions for market mechanisms to effectively become a real instrument for implementing public environmental policies. Thus, BVRio’s mission also includes the promotion of effective means of negotiating environmental assets, as a way of demonstrating the feasibility of the concepts developed by the Institute. (proof of concept). To this end was created BVRio Environmental Exchange, an impact company whose objective is to leverage private sector capital to implement and scale the pre-operational activities developed by BVRio Institute.

BVRio Institute and BVRio Environmental Exchange, which form the BVRio Group, are designed to act in a complementary way to create the necessary conditions and demonstrate the feasibility of developing an environmental economy in the sectors in which they operate. While originally focused on promoting environmental compliance in Brazil, more recently BVRio expanded its scope and activities to tackle international and global challenges. Currently, operating in China, Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.

BVRio’s Governance

BVRio is a civil association formed by three categories of members: representatives of the business sector; representatives of NGOs and the academic sector, and citizens involved in promoting sustainable economic development. Its governance structure includes a Deliberative Council, with representatives from each category of associates, and an Advisory Board with government representatives. Executive functions are performed by an Executive Secretariat.

Deliberative Council

Business Chamber

Marina Grossi – Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS)

Mauricio de Moura Costa (Director of Operations and President of bvrio.com) –E2 Brazil Environmental Partner

Audit Committee

Team

Pedro Moura Costa

Pedro is co-founder and director of the BVRio group, based in Oxford, United Kingdom.
He is specialised in environmental policy and finance, responsible for the development
of financial mechanisms to assist the compliance with environmental laws and, today,
focused on internationalisation of the activities originally created by BVRio in Brazil.

Mauricio Moura Costa

Mauricio is co-founder and director of the BVRio group, based on
Rio de Janeiro Brazil. He specialises in commercial and environmental law,
is responsible for the development of financial mechanisms
and for coordinating the group’s activities in Brazil.

Rosangela Campello

Administrative, secretarial and financial support to the Direction
and Human Resources. Responsible for the preparation of control sheets,
correspondence, travel expense reports, keep files updated and organised
and manage contact lists and calendars.

Beto Mesquita

Beto is a forest engineer, Doctor of Environmental and Forestry Sciences.
As Director of Policies and Institutional Relations of BVRio,
he is responsible for liaising with partners and representing
institutions in various forums. He coordinates projects and initiatives
in the areas of forest, sustainable production and public policies.

Florence Benn

Florence is a trained agroforester and Doctor of Physics.
As a Responsible Timber Programme Officer her activities involve
supporting BVRio’s Responsible Timber Programme. This includes engaging
with timber traders and trade federations and helping with the running of
BVRio’s online negotiations platform for legal and certified timber products.

Bianca Ambrosio

Bianca is a geographer and identifier of Brazilian wood (Amazonian species).
At BVRio she supports the origination and negotiation processes of timber products.
Supports analysing the Due Diligence System. Responsible for analysis in
botany and xylology for speciation of the Responsible Timber Exchange
platform and for monitoring irregularities and illegalities in the Brazilian timber sector.

Bruno Baião Meyer

Bruno operates on the timber trading platform, fostering the interactions
of users. He makes the interface and interaction of the responsible timber platform,
with other similar sites. In the commercial area, Bruno brings in new customers
and maintains existing customers. He also trades biomass to the Brazilian internal
market. Assists clients of the CRAs and UCs markets.

Kelmend Kavaja

Kelmend, based in Oxford, is an ICT, philanthropic and international
development professional. He coordinates the operational activities
of BVRio Group (in Brasil, UK and China). He improves the organisation’s
systems, operational activities, financial controls, revenue generation,
project management and administrative routines, contributing to the overall
strategy and growth of the organisation.

Cristina Tavares de Bastos

Trained social anthropologist, Cristina manages BVRio’s Communications
and Outreach sector. Based in Oxford, she is responsible for the production
and dissemination of all communications and digital marketing materials.
She is the contact point for media, events and promotional enquiries.

Uriel Bertoche

Uriel participates in the entire development cycle of BVRio’s platform
and is the technical responsible for the Responsible Timber Exchange
and mobile applications. He studies the use and viability of new
technologies by his team of developers and seeks to guarantee the
availability of all services offered by BVRio.

Luis Felipe Sobral

Luis works on programming new features and keeps the pages
related to Due Diligence, Certificate Verification
and risk assessment of the supply chain of BVRio’s website
[front-end (HTML and JavaScript), back-end (Java) and database (SQL)]

Wallace Benavides

Wallace is involved in the development and maintenance of the BVRio
systems platform. Its main activity is the development of web and
mobile applications, working mainly on the user-end side of these systems.

Eduardo Araujo

Eduardo works in the development and maintenance of BVRio’s systems platform.
Its main activity is the development of tools of mail marketing support,
integrating data from the timber market with the results of email-based campaigns,
through tools like MailChimp and Streak.

Luciana Costa de Freitas

Luciana was responsible for the realisation of the Reverse Logistics Credits
pilot project (2014-2015) and institutional actions to make the model a legal tool.
Idealiser of the project “Management of Recyclables in Soccer Games”
in partnership with the Brazilian Football Confederation (Green Cup 2017,
Green Cup 2018, World Cup qualifying matches, among others). Legal and
operational support consultancy activities in the field of Solid Waste.

Pablo Fernandez

Pablo manages all climate related initiatives at BVRio. He is responsible
for structuring climate finance solutions, development of regional climate policy,
national and international carbon markets and GHG inventories.
He is the contact point for inquiries about, or a project, or idea related to,
climate change mitigation or adaptation.

Partners

Financial supporters

Government partners

Operational partners

Awards

Since its creation in 2011 BVRio was rewarded with several prizes rewarding its mission, vision and projects.

Selected for development by The Lab:
Driving Sustainable Investment – 2018

The Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF) project was selected by
The Lab – Brazil Lab program – for development. RCF aims to provide financial
incentives for soy production on existing deforested and degraded land,
discouraging the further expansion of agricultural land in the Brazilian Cerrado.

Trophy Entidade Amiga 2017 – ABRAMPA

BVRio received the Troféu Entidade Amiga (friendly entity award) from the
Brazilian Association of members of the Environment Public Ministry (Abrampa).
BVRio was awarded for its performance in the development of socio-environmental
services. The Trophy aims to promote, disseminate and improve the use of efficient
use of natural resources, preservation of the environment, best practices and support for
sustainable socio-environmental projects.

Climate Action Leader 2014 – R20

BVRio was nominated Climate Action Leader by Regions for Climate Action,
created by former California/US governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to
the governor’s Strategic Advisor, Mr. Terry Tamminen, “The leadership and vision
of BVRio are extremely impressive and exactly the kind of example that R20 values.
The founding chairman of the R20 is committed to taking action on climate change
and is doing so through the development and implementation of low carbon projects.”

Katerva Prize 2013

In 2013, BVRio received the 2013 Katerva Prize in the Economy category.
The award, created in 2011 by the British organisation Katerva
(which in Latin stands for crowd), receives nominations from a network
of international experts who choose the best projects from around the world.

Best Social Organisation 2014 – Award Madeira

In recognition of the work developed in the forest market, especially for the creation
of the trading platform for environmental assets Bolsa de Valores Ambientais,
BVRio won the 2014 Madeira Award of the Besc Institute of Humanities and Economics,
in the category Social Organisations.